Latest / Theology Made Podcast / The Hymn That Went Viral Before TikTok: Amazing Grace

Transcript

The Hymn That Went Viral Before TikTok: Amazing Grace · Theology Made Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Theology Made Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jordan.
• 0:09
  Today,
• 0:09
  we're going to look at the hymn that went viral before TikTok,
• 0:14
  Amazing Grace.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was a chilly New Year's Day in 1773.
• 0:22
  A small English congregation gathered in an unremarkable parish
• 0:26
  church in Olney,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: a market town about 50 miles from London.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Their pastor, John Newton, stood before them.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't a famous preacher.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't a great poet.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't even particularly Polish.
• 0:38
  But that morning,
• 0:39
  he read aloud some new verses that he had written to mark the
• 0:43
  new year.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the lines were simple.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: They were stark.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: There was no orchestra,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: no choir,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: just villagers,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: most of them poor lacemakers and laborers,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: singing words that came from the mouth of a man who knew he was,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: in fact,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: a wretch.
• 1:25
  What no one in that little church could have imagined was that
• 1:29
  these words would
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: one day become the most famous hymn in the world.
• 1:33
  Sung by presidents and prisoners in revival tents and at civil
• 1:36
  right marches,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: at funerals and concerts,
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: whispered in foxholes,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: and belted in stadiums.
• 1:44
  No song has traveled farther,
• 1:45
  lasted longer,
• 1:46
  or shaped theology more deeply than Amazing Grace.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: But how did this simple hymn,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Born in Obscurity,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: go viral centuries before TikTok,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Spotify,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: or YouTube?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And to answer that,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: we have to go back to a storm at sea,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: a slave ship,
• 2:04
  and a man whose life embodied both the horrors of sin and the
• 2:08
  possibility of
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: redemption.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: John Newton was born in 1725 to a devout mother and a seafaring father.
• 2:15
  His mother hoped he would become a pastor,
• 2:18
  but she died when he was only seven.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: His father soon remarried, and Newton's life veered towards the sea.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: By his teens, he was a sailor.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: By his 20s, he was a slave trader.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't just tangentially involved in the slave trade.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: He was captaining ships filled with shackled human beings,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: transporting them across the Atlantic in horrific conditions.
• 2:39
  Newton later admitted he treated people with cruelty,
• 2:41
  contempt,
• 2:42
  and violence.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: He was, in his own words, a wretch.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: But his life changed one stormy night in 1748.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: His ship was caught in a violent squall.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: As the waves threatened to sink them, Newton cried out to God.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow, he survived.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that night became a turning point.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't an instant conversion.
• 3:02
  He kept working in the slave trade for several more years,
• 3:04
  but slowly the conviction grew.
• 3:07
  He began to pray,
• 3:08
  he began to read scripture,
• 3:09
  and eventually he left the sea altogether.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: By his mid-30s,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Newton had become an Anglican minister,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: and as he grew in faith,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: he came to repent of his role in slavery.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: He became an outspoken abolitionist,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: partnering with William Wilberforce,
• 3:23
  and using his story as living evidence of both the depths of
• 3:26
  human sin and the
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: power of God's mercy.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And out of that life came the hymn.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Newton didn't write Amazing Grace as a global anthem.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: He wrote it for his congregation.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: In Olney, he often penned hymns to accompany his sermons.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: His parishioners weren't highly educated.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: They needed songs that were simple, memorable, and theological.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So he wrote words anyone could understand.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Grace is amazing.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Grace saves wretches.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Grace teaches fear and removes fear.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Grace carries us home.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: No technical terms, no ornate poetry, just direct experiential theology.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what made it powerful wasn't originality.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was honesty.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Newton sang what he knew.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was the wretch.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: He had been lost.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: He had been blind.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: He had been rescued.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: His congregation sang it with him.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no evidence that the hymn traveled far during his lifetime.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was printed in only hymns,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: a collection he published with his friend,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: the poet William Cowper.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't yet famous.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: The song had been born, but it hadn't gone viral.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: The hymn Second Life began not in England, but in America.
• 4:35
  In the early 19th century,
• 4:37
  Amazing Grace crossed the ocean with hymn books and preachers.
• 4:41
  On the American frontier,
• 4:42
  during the Second Great Awakening,
• 4:43
  camp meetings erupted.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thousands gathered in open fields, singing hymns late into the night.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Here, Newton's words found fertile soil.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Preachers spoke of sin, repentance, and salvation.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Ordinary people, broken by guilt and fear, longed for assurance.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And here was a hymn that said exactly what they needed to hear.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Grace saves the lost.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Grace redeems the wretch.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Grace secures the future.
• 5:10
  The hymn took root in the revivalist soil of America,
• 5:14
  far from its quiet English parish origins.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the words alone didn't make Amazing Grace famous.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: What made it unforgettable was the tune.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Originally,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Newton's verses were sung to various melodies,
• 5:29
  and it wasn't until the early 19th century that they were
• 5:32
  paired with the now
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: familiar tune New Britain.
• 5:35
  That melody,
• 5:36
  with its pentonic scale,
• 5:38
  was simple,
• 5:39
  haunting,
• 5:40
  and easy to sing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It could be learned in minutes.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: It could be harmonized by untrained voices.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: It carried an almost primal sense of yearning.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So words and tune married.
• 5:50
  And suddenly,
• 5:51
  Amazing Grace became not just a set of verses,
• 5:54
  but a spiritual force.
• 5:56
  The greatest irony and the greatest redemption of Newton's hymn
• 5:59
  is that it became
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: beloved among the very people he once enslaved.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Enslaved Africans in America heard the hymn in revival meetings.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: They sang it in fields and in cabins.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: They infused it with rhythms and cadences of spirituals.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: For them, I Once Was Lost But Now I'm Found wasn't just Newton's story.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was theirs.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: The hymn became a song of survival,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: hope,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: faith that God's grace could break even the chains of slavery.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Over time, black churches in America made Amazing Grace their own.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: It became a spiritual anthem sung in sorrow, resilience, and joy.
• 6:32
  By the 20th century,
• 6:33
  Amazing Grace had become one of the most sung hymns in America.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: But in the 1960s, it took on new power.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Civil rights leaders sang it at rallies, marches, and funerals.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: The hymn was a protest and a prayer.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: When Martin Luther King Jr.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: was assassinated, choir sang Amazing Grace.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: When marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, they sang it.
• 6:55
  The words once written by a man complicit in slavery became the
• 6:59
  anthem of those
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: fighting its legacy.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of the hymn's mysteries.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: It transcends the author.
• 7:05
  Newton's guilt gave birth to words that enslaved people
• 7:07
  transformed into liberation.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Grace multiplied.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And from there, the hymn spread everywhere.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: recorded by Aretha Franklin,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Judy Collins,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Johnny Cash,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Elvis Presley,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: played on bagpipes at 9-11 memorials,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: sung at Billy Graham Crusades,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: whispered at bedsides,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: performed at concerts.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: It became the one song everyone knew.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Believer, skeptic, saint sinner.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just a hymn.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was a cultural touchstone.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So why did it go viral?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And why did this particular hymn endure?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there are four main reasons.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: The first, simplicity.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: The words are direct, the melody is easy, anyone can sing it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Second, universality.
• 7:45
  Everyone knows what it's like to feel lost,
• 7:47
  to long for rescue,
• 7:48
  to hope for grace.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Third is flexibility.
• 7:51
  It works in a cathedral or around a campfire,
• 7:54
  full choir,
• 7:55
  or one trembling voice.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then testimony.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't abstract theology.
• 8:00
  It's one man's story of being rescued by grace,
• 8:03
  and that story became everyone's story.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: It went viral not because it was clever.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: but because it was true.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: John Newton called himself a wretch, and he was right.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: But out of his sin, God brought a song.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Out of his complicity in slavery, God brought an anthem of freedom.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Out of his story of being lost, God gave the world a hymn of being found.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing Grace is more than a song.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a theology of hope set to music.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's the sound of the gospel condensed into a single melody.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's why it still works centuries later.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because everyone, deep down, knows they need grace.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone knows they're lost in some way, and everyone longs to be found.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: So when the voices rise in a little parish church,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: in a packed stadium,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: in a hospital room,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: in a protest march,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: we're all joining Newton's confession.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're all singing the same truth.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Grace is amazing.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to Theology Made.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: If this episode helped you think a little deeper,
• 9:01
  go ahead and hit like or follow on whatever platform you're on
• 9:05
  and maybe share it
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: with a friend who'd enjoy the conversation too.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: That saved a wretch like me.